Wall outside incense wall. Since the beginning of this year, the performance of independent brands in the domestic market has been bleak. The performance of foreign markets is remarkable.

On August 5, Chery Automobile stated that it accumulatively exported 88,835 vehicles from January to July, an increase of 89.25% year-on-year, and it has already completed 70% of its annual export target. According to statistics, the top five export vehicle manufacturers in the first half of the year are all independent brand enterprises, including Chery, Chang'an, Jianghuai, Great Wall and Dongfeng.

At the same time, the export of self-owned car manufacturers has begun to upgrade from a simple vehicle export to a local production base. Gesher.com CEO Chen Wenkai believes that the internationalization of independent brands is the way to go.

Before the export model was upgraded, the "First Financial Daily" learned from Geely Automobile (00175.HK) that the company plans to expand its production scale in Indonesia with an investment of tens of millions of dollars.

And earlier on July 19th, Chery Automobile invested the largest amount of its wholly-owned factory in Brazil and laid the groundwork, with an investment of 400 million U.S. dollars. This is known as a milestone in the internationalization of China's own-brand auto companies. Compared to the 16 plants that Chery has established overseas, the Brazilian plant will be a true automaker with a complete stamping, welding, painting and assembly line. The project is expected to be completed and put into operation in September 2013. The first models to be put into operation are the Chery A1 and Fengyun 2 (A13), and the Flex models will be given priority. In addition, according to sources, Chery will also cooperate with the Socma Group in Argentina in South America to build a new automobile assembly plant in Berazategui, a suburb of Buenos Aires, with a total investment of US$170 million. The assembly plant will initially have an annual production capacity of 40,000 units, and the second stage will increase to 70,000 units, mainly to meet the strong demand of neighboring Brazil, and the demand for a surge in the local auto market in Argentina.

Similarly, in Brazil, the world’s fourth-largest auto market, there is Jianghuai Automobile (600418.SH). The reporter learned from Jianghuai Automobile that JAC will plan to invest 600 million U.S. dollars in Brazil to build a factory to expand its market share in Brazil. The plant will be put into production in 2014, with an annual output of 100,000 vehicles.

Last year, Brazil surpassed Germany to sell 3.3 million vehicles in the world’s fourth-largest auto market. In the first half of this year, Chery’s sales volume in Brazil reached 18,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 321 percent, accounting for more than a quarter of Chery’s total exports. Only last year began to export Jianghuai Automobile in the Brazilian market. In the first half of this year, orders from Brazil reached 22,559 units.

In the past export history of self-owned brands, most of them use local distributors to invest funds, and China establishes joint ventures in the form of technology shares, or all dealers invest in establishing foundry factories, and export them in CKD (all-in-one-part) model.

Wang Mo, deputy general manager of Chery Automobile International, told the reporter: “A lot of countries like to use localization to stimulate local employment and taxation. This can be supported by the local government and avoid re-thinking the old road of exporting Russia.” In order to prevent a large number of Chinese cars Exporting to the country has caused an impact on the country’s auto industry. Russia has greatly increased tariffs and various access conditions, which has led to a significant reduction in the number of Chinese auto exports to Russia.

Breaking through the low end According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in the first half of the year, vehicle manufacturers exported 381,100 vehicles, an increase of 56.99% year-on-year. In May and June, the monthly export volume reached a record high, and the export volume in June even exceeded 80,000. CAAC believes that it is expected to surpass the record high of 644,000 in 2008 and record highs in history. "Undoubtedly, the number of auto exports in the first half of this year shows that China's auto exports have indeed picked up, but more than 50% of the growth is still only recoverable," said Yang Aiguo, deputy secretary-general of the China Automotive Products Import & Export Chamber of Commerce.

In fact, the export situation behind the "new high" figure is still worrying. Liu Shaojun, deputy inspector of the Department of Industry of the Ministry of Commerce, said that while the rapid growth of automobile exports, it should also be noted that there are deficiencies in the export of domestic self-owned brands.

Just four months ago, Chery’s assembly plant in Egypt was halted because of the turmoil in the situation, and plans for exporting products to North Africa and the Middle East by major domestic automobile exporters such as Brilliance, Geely, and FAW were temporarily suspended.

Rao Da, the secretary-general of the National Association of Travel Unions, told reporters: “The situation of China’s auto exports has been unstable, and the high-end markets in Europe and America have been difficult to enter. Together with the long-term reliance on emerging markets, once these markets show signs of trouble, we can only sit still and wait. It cannot be buffered from the markets of Europe and the United States."

Liu Shaojun said that some enterprises lack long-term strategic plans for automobile exports, and exports have a certain degree of blindness. The order of the export market is still not standard, and after-sales service is relatively lacking, and the homogeneity of products is also serious.

Compared with the American, German and Japanese cars, there are still obvious gaps in the technical content and brand awareness of self-owned brand models, and their competitiveness is not strong. Wang Fengying, general manager of Great Wall Motors, believes that at present, China's overall strategy for internationalization is not fully prepared and overseas development faces many difficulties. Due to the lack of overall strategic planning, there have been many problems in the “going out” process of self-owned brand cars. Most of the export models are concentrated at the low end, and the export prices are relatively low.

In terms of exporting to European and American markets, domestic independent brands are hitting the wall again and again. Great Wall Motor introduced the car to Europe through the Italian dealer Eurasia in 2006. It originally planned to sell over 10,000 vehicles by 2009, but its actual annual sales volume is about 2,000 vehicles. In 2005, Chery and Visionary Vehicles signed the North American exclusive sales agent. The contract, which is planned to sell Chery Automobile in the North American market from 2007, ended in a lawsuit; Brilliance Automotive also started exporting to Europe in 2006, but due to the company’s first model released in Europe The BS6 Zunchi sedan has only gained one star in the safety collision test of the European New Vehicle Safety Evaluation Association (EuroNCAP) of Venus, Germany's German Automobile Association (ADAC).